With the toss of her purse to the conference table, she began to pace away her stress. They were almost done. She repeated the chant in her head. Delilah had plenty of ammunition left. Maybe he and his attorney would listen to reason. If they did not, she would destroy him.
“I want to talk to her!” she heard a man shout.
“You cannot go in there. If you don’t back away, I will get the police!” Adele warned. Delilah turned in time to see Maverick push aside her assistant and storm inside.
“I want to talk to you!” he demanded.
“Adele. It’s okay,” Delilah said.
“No, mam, I was told by Alvin to stay by your side at all times. You need to leave, sir!” Adele said and got right in Maverick’s face. “Now, sir!”
“It’s okay,” Delilah reassured her. “He and I can talk. Just wait outside the door.”
“Ms. Montgomery? I wouldn’t advise this!”
Delilah gave her assistant a firm nod of assurance. She wasn’t afraid of Maverick. She had dealt with many men in her profession and life who tried to intimidate her. At the age of ten, she met the worst of men and learned soon after that to be weak could cost you everything.
“You dug into my personal life,” Maverick seethed. “My wife?”
“You sat on that stand and talked about this perfect love. No, love is perfect. Ask me how I know,” Delilah said.
Maverick smirked. “How do you know? Because you married for money? You and your pervert husband! You think I don’t know what is underneath that gilded cloak covering that life of yours? You judge me, lady? Fuck you. Look in the fucking mirror!”
“Insult me again or call me out of my character, and this discussion is over,” Delilah said.
“You try to play innocent for that judge, but you aren’t. Wait until we put you on the stand!”
“Is there something you want from me? Something you need to say because I can promise you this your last chance.” Delilah shot back.
“Noah. He’s my son,” Maverick announced.
“My son!” Delilah said. “I gave birth to him! Loved him, protected him, nurtured him all of his life. Your sperm donation changes none of that.”
“It changes all of it,” Maverick smiled. “He’s my flesh and blood. Mine. And the only reason I’m here today is to fight for him. Because you know what? You’re the type of person that would raise him in all that money and fancy life you got and never show him the real world. What he faces out there? What’s coming for him if he isn’t man enough to stand up for himself and what he believes, he’ll marry a witch like you! You’d let him grow up worshiping that evil monster who killed my wife!”
“I’m raising a black child. A black boy. You don’t know a damn thing about that, now do you?”
“Oh? Because I’m white?” Maverick chuckled bitterly. “Noah is half of me!”
“He won’t be seen as half you, not by police officers like you! Will he?”
Maverick fumed.
Delilah glared.
“You’re that woman that thinks her money and fancy degrees makes her better than everyone else. It doesn’t! I know the insides of the world that will judge him better than you could ever conceive. I won’t let you and your prejudice take him from me.”
“You don’t know me at all,” she gave a sharp laugh. “I’m far from prejudice.”
“I’ll never stop,” Maverick warned.
Delilah’s smile faded.
“You understand me now? Never. Today, six months from now, all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to. I’ll start going to the media that keeps ringing my phone. Talking about you and your husband. I tell everyone how my wife died in agony. I’ll publicly hunt you and all those fancy Montgomery’s until Noah will know about me, read about me. And one day, you won’t stop him from coming to see me. One day he’ll learn all of the truth. And he’ll hate you for it. When he comes to me, I’ll tell him about this day in the courthouse. How you conspired to throw me out of his life.”
“This isn’t about you!” Delilah screamed. She clenched her hands into a fist. “This is about my baby. I don’t know you. Who the hell are you? Why would I give my son to someone who has killed people? Who is so violent his own police force fired him? Why!”
“That’s not who I am. If you read my file, you’d know that. But I think you already do. I think you’re scared. And you’re looking for an excuse.”
“Really, because you sound like a monster right now. Bullying me and threatening me because I’m fighting for my child’s safety and his life!” said Delilah.
For the first time, she saw the man in him, not the gladiator who wanted to go to war with her look ashamed. He shook his head. “I’ve been through a lot, lady. I’m not going to be your victim or your chump. Fuck that. This is nasty because you wouldn’t even have the fucking decency to let me meet my kid. You threw money at me! I have a right to be angry.”
“So have I!” Delilah said, and the tears slipped down her cheeks. “I’ve been through hell. And this is hell for me. My husband is dead. My life is on every news station. So this isn’t about my money or controlling you. This is about me trying to hold on to my child. If it takes money or your buried secrets to do so, I’ll use them both to protect him.”
“I’m not a bad man!” he insisted.
“So what! So what? You could be the President of the United States and I still wouldn’t give you my baby!” She over-shouted him.
“I paid for my mistakes. I lost people because of my mistakes. I didn’t come looking for you. I have nothing. No one left. My wife is dead, and my baby died with her. I have no one but my son. And yes, you are his mother; just accept the fact that I’m his father. That means something!”
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Jefferson, Delilah’s attorney, walked into the room.
Maverick glared at him and then her. To avoid a confrontation, he left. Jefferson looked at Delilah with shock. “What the hell were you doing in here with him?”
“He followed me,” Delilah stammered.
“And you know the play. You don’t talk to him. Ever. Not without me.”
“You work for me,” Delilah reminded him. She turned from the men, and wiped her tears, smearing her mascara and foundation. She kept her back to Jefferson, so he didn’t see how her hands shook and how weak and pathetic she felt. “What did the judge say?”
“She’s going to enter our deposition into the record. You just have to testify, and we destroy this bastard’s petition for visitation. Then we set a court date to get rid of him for good.”
“Are you sure?” Delilah asked with a shaky voice.
“What?” Jefferson asked.
Delilah turned and looked at her attorney. “Are you sure?”
“Sure about what? That we can shut down his visitation? Yes. And if we do this, then we can defeat his custody case.”
“But if he loses, he can appeal. Right?” she asked.
Jefferson sighed. “Yes, he can appeal, but—”
“And he can take this all the way to the high courts. Right? One year from now, two years from now, four years from now, and there he is. In my face, harassing us, pushing to get into my baby’s life.”